World's first endless steel strip factory is set up in Italy

By Bryan Betts | Manufacturing editor

Published Thursday, September 17, 2009

Italian steel producer Arvedi has linked up with Siemens to build a factory that turns liquid steel into rolled metal sheet in a single continuous production process that could cut process costs by up to 50 per cent.

The endless strip production (ESP) facility in Cremona, Italy, is planned to produce over two million tonnes of steel a year. It goes from solidifying the liquid metal, through casting and rolling the metal into sheet, and then coiling it into rolls in only 3.5 minutes.

Arvedi claimed that, compared to conventional steelworks, the uninterrupted process could bring energy savings of up to 45 per cent are possible. ESP reduces the factory's CO2 emissions to a similar degree and cuts process costs by up to 50 per cent, not least because the ESP method makes it possible to use all the liquid steel's thermal energy, the company added.

It said that sheeting made on the ESP line could be used in the automotive industry, in the production of household appliances and in the construction industry, as well as for the manufacture of pipes, metal sections, machines and other mechanical equipment.

The process's inventor Giovanni Arvedi partnered with Siemens VAI Metals Technologies to develop the Cremona plant, and has now licensed the ESP technology to Siemens which will market it world-wide.